


One Step Forward and As Many as it Takes to Get Back to You

by gigiree



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: F/M, Romance, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-09 03:25:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4331982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigiree/pseuds/gigiree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been two years since the Bog King's disappearance. Marianne still holds out hope and though, through a series of technicalities, is now the rightful ruler of the Dark Forest, she will not accept it. She still has not given up in searching for Bog, and even if the rest of the kingdom has already begun calling her the Marsh Queen behind her back and new threats arise, she will keep moving one step forward and as many back as it takes to find Bog again.</p>
<p>"the way forward is sometimes the way back..." (Labyrinth 1986)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Wrong. It’s all wrong.

But no one else seems to notice.

What they see is their monarch, hunched over in a familiar crouch, on a dark throne carved from still-living branches, curving and twisting and grasping and welcoming in a way they’d come to accept with the crawling passage of time and the settling of habits.

They accept the newness of it all. The tree-turned-throne has not the same imposing character as the old one made of bone and moss. It has not the same feel nor the same fit, but still they stand by it, loyalty and a grim determination wrought into their myriad of strange features.

There is honesty in their dark eyes, and uncertainty in their stances, and weapons trembling in their three or four or five fingered (or clawed) hands.

They obey the newness with the same gusto as the old, because their current leader is strong and willful. And because despite the lack of threats or theatrics, there is something in the leader’s tone that reminds them of the old and brings a dimming sorrow to their eyes, and it is echoed in the gaze of their monarch.

And still the amber shines in the royal staff, set and precious and unwavering, despite the loss.

It’s all wrong. It hurts.

An oppressive heaviness seeps through the whole throne room and it has nothing to do with the dim lighting or the fact that the castle is ensconced in the deeper part of the forest, nestled at the edge of a murky bog and carved from a still living willow tree. And there is still the moonshine that reaches through the canopy and through the open windows. The darkness is an entity all its own, and it seems to pervade each corner of the new castle, making its way into even the deepest ridges of the old willow. It lies in wait in every room and in every heart, lashing and gnashing when triggered by seemingly the smallest of things.

A rumpled moss blanket, a vase of purple wilting blossoms, a dried and lovingly pressed boutonniere.

Still their leader is strong and resilient, so they must be too. But there’s something in that face…in that voice…in that stance…in the way that she pats at her hip to look for a sword that is no longer there…in the way that she forgets the symbol of her status in a not-on-purpose-but-not-unknowing way…it makes her look vulnerable…and so sad…so very sad.

Why…?

As she traipses through the fortress and the kingdom, feet silent and steps heavy with a sorrow she is not allowed to fall to, they see her look to the shadows. She looks at them with a keen kind of interest, a disappointed foolish hope that somehow makes it towards her wings, making them shudder with an air of anticipation, they tense…and then the shadows lengthen and her wings unfurl, wider and wider until she realizes-

There’s nothing there.

Still she wishes and waits, and shadows that had once seemed frightening now give a painful kind of wishful wistfulness, that in a somehow, just maybe, i-must-be-going-crazy-but-i-need-this sort of way, give her hope. Hope that the shadows will coalesce and the dark will abate and a tall spectre will emerge from them, just like before.

And she would give anything…anything at all…for that to happen.

But then the moon rises, chasing away the dark and peeks in through the wide skylight (the one he had made for her).

‘Don’t want ya breakin anymore windows.’

It moves inexorably, towards its zenith, just as unstoppable as the passage of time and the sinking, clawing, weakening feeling of loss that deepens with each moondown.

She has come to loathe the moon, silver and cold and cruel, bathed in broken promises.

Liar. Liar…Liar…by moondown…you liar…it hurts

She doesn’t move. How can she when she feels such an icy sorrow and a frigid remembrance has reigned true? She had let the cold take, frosting over her memories like precious baubles behind glass, and though it makes them less colorful, and mutes the emotions, they are safe and she is able to function.

She prefers to sit like stone and let the numb and cold and anger do as they may, because they are old friends who stave off the pain.

But she will have to move again. For the kingdom, for the people here, for the ones standing near the new, wooden throne with determined glances and loyalty in their bones.

“I hate this…I hate you…I hate this…I miss you.”

The doors are thrown wide open, the tepid breeze brings with it, the smell of mulch and dead leaves, and petrichor so familiar…

She hears the messenger before she sees him.

“Marsh Que-” He begins, lisping and fumbling over words and tumbling over his large webbed feet, eager and running much too quick for his strange physiology.

He stops his address when she lifts her head to glare at him, eyes that could have been honey colored and melting sweet with happiness were now dark and flat. Small lips, far too shapely and far too thin to be considered beautiful by any goblin’s standards, curl in a semblance of a snarl.

And though she has no fangs and no sharp ridges and no claws to speak of, it’s enough to strike fear because her reputation precedes her.

“You fight well…for a fairy.”

Wings of iridescent purples stay poised behind her, rising the slightest bit higher from the throne and refracting the bright moonbeams, spinning silver flashes in the faint markings dotting them. 

“A-apologies. Lady Steward M-marianne…we have a message from the mushrooms.”

She tilts her head, waiting, her snarl abated. And as she looks upon the tittering, shaking little goblin no taller than her waist, she feels a stab of pity somewhere beyond the muted, murky depths of her emotions.

Her eyes soften the slightest bit, her wings settle again and they no longer catch the light.

And for a second, the goblin (named Twitch), thinks there’s something almost familiar in that softening…and it is a hazy memory of blue eyes and mercy and hidden hints of kindness on even the roughest of days.

He is the tiniest bit encouraged by the thought and he taps his three claws in quick succession, nervousness evident.

And for some reason unknown to him, the click clack of his claws takes her away, and Twitch sees the interest fade from her eyes, leaching any honey that may have been left.

“There’s a message from the mushrooms, my Lady.” He spits out before he loses her, his long tongue slipping slightly over his three front fangs.

Her eyes are still faded and her form still rigid, but still she acknowledges him again with a tilt of her head.

He quails at that, shifty eyes roving over each detail of the intricate throne room and the carvings on the walls and the lanterns and the moonlight and the leader sitting like stone upon a throne of living wood.

Stuff and Thang move impatiently, one nodding encouragingly to the messenger and the other feigning reading the time on her wrist.

“May is the worst hoarder.”

Twitch knows he has done wrong when Stuff and Thang groan and the Mar-…the Lady Steward rises from the throne, soundless and smooth.

He closes his eyes as she approaches, awaiting retribution, but there’s nothing.

She merely glances at him, a dim kind of amusement and nostalgia bringing back some of the amber in her look. And it’s almost, almost enough to make them just as warm as the precious jewel in the staff she has once again left to the side.

She smiles for a beat, a flittering, fluttering quirk of the lips that disappears as fast as dew. Then she walks away towards the double doors and her wings open wide, once again catching the moonlight, refracting and diffracting patterns of silver and jewel.

The thin, translucent and jagged scar running down half of the top right wing does not go unnoticed this time.

And neither does the tall staff leaning upright next to the throne, the amber stone at its head shining forlorn and waiting.

“Marianne…wait!”

Marianne pauses at the entrance, spine straight and taut and oh god it hurts so much more…

“Griselda…:” She mutters and she can’t help the melancholy smile that crosses her lips because she is called by the only one who can understand…

Yet her fists clench because she had hoped to be able to get away just this once without having to carry that darned staff with her. It’s a reminder…an all too hurtful one that ways as heavily on her heart as it does in life.

It’s not mine. He’ll be here soon. He can take it back. He promised.

You promised…by moondown…liar…liar..liar…it hurts.

She doesn’t turn around. She’s too caught up in the stream of remembrance and feelings now, a floodgate has opened and she feels the words tearing at her throat, scrabbling up and up into knots until she feels she will die if she can’t scream to the night sky and if she can’t fly..

But then she hears the scraping of the pole against the wooden floor and she can picture the tiny goblin mother, struggling and hefting the too tall staff towards the front of the room.

I do it for them. I do it for you.

Marianne sighs. She loathes the ache that the damned staff gives her. She rolls her shoulders and for not the first or the last time wishes that she had been allowed to keep her sword instead.

She resists the urge to blaze off, to fly until there is nothing but numbness and cold and gray…

Reality hits her hard when small, gray fingers grab her right hand and uncurl her own fingers gently from their clenched fist.

Powerless and without strength she feels against those tiny, begging , pressing, urging, helping fingers and she does nothing as Griselda puts the staff once again in her possession.

“You need this.”

And Marianne knows she is right, no matter how much she hates the fact. Because as soon as she feels it’s familiar heavy weight, and the edges of the not completely smooth wood catching against her skin, she leans against the staff, laying her head on it for but a moment because the little warmth radiating from the amber reminds her.

And heavens know she needs a reminder with her frozen memories fading and color leaching from them after these past two years.

“Thank you…” She whispers out hoarsely, and it is all that she can say because she feels she will shatter if she says anything more.

Griselda merely pats her hand again, fingers lingering on the base because it really does feel like a smoothed out carapace and even the color is really close and Marianne know that this is all that they really have left…

And then with a push of her wings, she is off through the forest…

Your forest, not mine. Your kingdom…so please…

The weapon is as heavy as she remembers, weighty and unwieldy, she misses her sword and the ache in her shoulder and in her heart feed the doubt in her mind; sharp and piercing instances of what-ifs and questions linger because all she has for guidance are a few lessons in goblin politique, a handful of council meetings, a more than broken almost-mother-in-law and an old staff.

She doubts much.

She is no queen. She was never meant to be…not of this forest and not like this. So she makes up her mind over and over again, that she is only holding his place because he will come back.

He has to come back…

The fear gnaws at her gut once more, and she swallows it down, beating it in time with her wings as she travels faster and faster.

She looks for the first mushroom in the line, flying towards the West border of the Dark Forest because it’s her best guess for the jumbled mess of words Twitch had delivered through no fault of his own.

The wind races her past her, humid and foggy and smelling oh so familiar.

And a different kind of fear grips her heart because if the message was what she thought it was, then there is something far more dangerous heading their way and she wonders if she still has enough left of a living heart to be able to face it.

She flies fast, the staff gripped tightly and the amber glowing. And as she passes over the field of purple poppies, and brushes against the ferns to make them stand and reach, and catches the play of moonlight on a spider web, she feels the knot in her throat grow tighter and tighter. She knows it will snap soon.

She grips the emblem of her office harder, because she is not the Marsh Queen, nor does she want to be…because admitting that would mean he…

It hurts.

Her sight grows blurry, and she wonders if it’s the mists hanging over the nearby pond or if she’s simply going too fast, wind whipping in her face and stinging her skin in a way his own shell never had because he had always been so gentle.

She’s grateful that there’s no one to see her tears or hear her as she whispers to the lonely night…

“I need you.”


	2. One Step Forward and Into Remembrance

There’s too much silver and gray…the moon colors the field and the ground and his own rough skin to a bleached, washed out hue. The moonlight is perfect and painful. A slight mist rises around him and then he looks down…

Down at the fallen wings limp and torn in his hands, down at the broken form cradled oh so gently in his arms.

_Drip, drop…_

Who would have known fairies bleed silver.

He thinks it absently and the world is muted in shades of gray and cold metal, the cold which he had never been affected by seizes him, has him in a vice like grip that makes it’s way up his long limbs and his kneeling form.

No…no…not this…

N _o, no ,no, no , no , no_

“No…” The word leaves his lips as he registers reality, his claws tremble and grasp and gently try to mend the tear on the top right wing, and even in the brightness of the moon, somehow the hues that had once shown and diffracted like stained glass on even the darkest of nights were dimmed, crumpled and misshapen.

It’s useless.

He shifts her in his grip, and her head lolls back, her white throat long and limp as a lily’s stem against his arm.

“Marianne…Marianne love…ye haf ta wake up…”

His voice is pleading, begging, an almost amused tone to his words because he really cannot imagine a world without her…a world where she isn’t just sleeping and isn’t just waiting for him to wake her.

“Marianne?”

There is no answer. No rising of the chest. No detectable beating of the heart.

_NO, NO, NO, NO, NO_

His anguish is deafening. And it beats against his head and his heart and his soul. It burns with a fire so bitter and finally, his scream is let loose for the cold, cold world to hear.

* * *

The days have run together, crashing and blending into one another, melting and coalescing into a blurred stream of fractured moments and colorless memories. There’s a worrisome niggling at the back of his thoughts, an inch worm making it’s way through, carving holes through his mental processes. It’s making his mind nothing but a sad affair of automatic replies and hidden worries.

He clutches the so very familiar staff tighter and tighter, until he can just barely feel the ridges of  the petrified wood pressing against his armored palm. It is a comfort, a steadying center of gravity that keeps him from being swept away in the river of running days.

His shoulders rattle with an intake of breath, a shuddering that courses through his lean frame and seems to sink down into the throne of moss and bone.

The wide open hall, the shadows and hallways, the hanging lanterns casting a sickeningly orange light…it’s all the same…it’s all right…and yet…

He finds himself lamenting the once welcomed shadows and looking up at the wide window from whence the occasional moonlight dances in. He thinks it too narrow now.

Maybe a skylight is called for?

_For what exactly?_

He squints at the strained sunlight coming in through the webbed glass, it struggles and just barely manages to eke it’s way through the gloom.

_For her…._

It’s a whisper of a thought, something that comes occasionally with the inch-worm’s progress and he hates it. It makes him uncertain and confused.

He grumbles to himself inarticulately, and Stuff and Thang shift a little uneasily because the Bog King has been in a mood of late and they really don’t want to deal with his cheerfully doled out punishments at the moment.

But then he settles himself into his usual crouch, armored plates sliding past each other, oddly flexible for such seeming hardness.

The click clack of his movements resonates in the otherwise silent throne room, and he is again made all too aware that he is not like the other goblins. Not smooth and not ‘handsome’ enough.

He is tall yes, but not broad. Eyes of blue too much like the world of sun and sky to belong perfectly. Not even his title is enough to open up  the path to love he so sought.

Absently, he takes one clawed hand off the death grip on his staff and reaches to his right.

There, safely tucked into the warm space between a chitin flecked leg and aged ivory rests a tiny vial, shining warmly with  a bright magenta and smelling of primroses. The scent is sweet…beckoning and repelling all at once to him.

He wonders at the revulsion and disgust roiling in him at the moment. The unwanted guilt he had thought that had been left behind in the dungeons with a chattering Sugar Plum wells up again.

_“Impetuous.”_

Sugar Plum had called him so. In retaliation and impatience, he had shaken her prison until she agreed to make the potion.

_“Are you listening?”_

_“Yes, yes, yes…”_

Then he had proceeded to grab the completed concoction, ignoring her loud and grating protests as he walked away.

_I am a liar…_

There’s a knocking at the door, it’s light and fluttery, not unlike the expected hammering of his heart in his chest.

He clears his throat, and he feels his cheeks blaze. There’s no time to prepare his usual stately demeanour.

“Err…hmmm…Enter!”

He winces because he realizes his voice is too gruff for what he wishes to convey and the tone echoes harshly in his ears and through the chamber.

_Always too rough…_

And as the double doors creak open ever so slowly, the haze comes back, worrying and looping through the newly chewed holes in his mind.

_Not for her…_

His hold on his staff grows tighter, the tightness in his chest alleviated by the slight sting of wooden ridges and dull amber.

He wills himself to focus on the heavy footsteps, hesitant and shy and not at all trained with the grace of a sword master.

_Why that comparison?_

The person attached to them is even more of the same hesitancy, an endearing blockiness that suggests she is more at home in the muggy waters that give him his name. Wide eyes set in a froggy face, long ears swinging jauntily and full, large lips stretched into a timid smile.

She curtsies low, her gaze never settling, darting to and fro and nervousness evident even in those few glances she allows to flutter on her king momentarily.

“You summoned me, your Majesty?”

Her voice is like sweet, golden sap from the heart of an ash tree.

The slight question mark at the end makes him inwardly sigh and the guilt blooms black in his heart, distracting him momentarily from the creeping haze. He rises quickly, because he knows that if he waits any longer, he will give in to the part of him that protests so loudly. He can hear it roaring at him, telling him it’s no good.

And still there is a smaller part, a part that tells him to be patient because what he seeks isn’t here. It will be in time, so wait…

_Wait for moondown._

He shakes his head quickly to dismiss the pricking thought, his neck cracking slightly.

The poor sweet thing in front of him startles, involuntarily stepping away from the approaching king.

Their height difference isn’t all that great, the top of her smooth head reaches his long nose, but still his crouching, rattling presence is a bit too strange for her liking. She can’t help but step back at his sudden movements.

“I…I didn’t mean ta startle ya…”

She remains quiet, her clammy fingers clasped in front of her. Still, she refuses to look at him.

It only furthers his resolve, his fingers closing on the top of the vial hidden away in a pouch at his hip.

“Walk with me.”  His voice is soft and pleading. There is no question there, but there is an entreaty.

Pity and duty stir her to action, and because this monarch of theirs is someone she calls a good friend, she nods. It’s been years, and still the friendship is not enough in her view to break this dynamic of majesty and subject between them, no matter how much they may have wished it.

And today of all days, she was summoned. Called to a service she was just a little reluctant to do because she had somewhere to be on this fine evening. She looks at the waning, straining sunlight and hopes with all her little, tender heart that she can still meet Him after this is said and done.

They walk in stifling quiet, an odd sort of expectation hanging between them that she is too proper to break and he is too nervous and riddled with holes to fully understand.

_Let’s stretch our wings._

The words are on the tip of his tongue and he realizes something with a painful jolt.

She can’t fly.

They make their way through the descending halls, eventually coming to the greenerie of dark foilage and rich blooms. There is a glow from the waning sun, russets and golds lending themselves to the dim atmosphere.

‘Dust the one you love, be the first she sees…dust the one you love, be the first she sees.’

He repeats the mantra over and over, his plan becoming more and more tangible. He shouts it mentally to drown out the doubt, guilt and haze. He says it so much, he imagines the words have piled up and temporarily filled in the holes, stopping the niggling for this moment.

So he clings to it and not the burning in his chest, not the thought that this unnecessary, and certainly not the thought that the moonlight is perfect for finding what he wants, can stop him now. He is caught up in the stream of days, his actions just as automatic as his replies.

He doesn’t question the ceasing of a racing heart or the lack of choking love that had once reigned so completely in this sweet thing’s presence. He simply exists to dust her with the love potion.

Quick as a dragonfly’s beating wings, he pops off the cap of the vial, the smell of primroses strong enough to rise above the numerous flowery scents in the gardens.

There is silence and time is both inexorable and frail as he throws the dust into her surprised expression.

He has taken a passive role, watching the whole thing with a detached kind of horror.

He sees her close her eyes instinctively to shield them. He sees her blink a few times and the remaining glittering parts of the potion fade around her shoulders. Then he remembers.

_It’s not going to work. It’s not going to work._

The haze is right and not for the first time.

So he is not completely shocked when her momentarily love struck expression devolves into a scream of horror, her thin arms coming up to her face to shield her from what  _he_  believes is his hideous visage.

She runs away.

_As expected._

And so the Bog King’s ban on love begins.  

_Again_


	3. One Step Forward and Into the Gray

“Damn it. It was the NORTH BORDER!  _GRAY IN THE NORTH BORDER!_ ”

Marianne grits her teeth, baring them in the smallest semblance of a snarl she can manage at the moment. She beats her wings harder and harder until she is nothing but a blur of indigo shooting through her (temporary) domain.

Cruel thorns catch at her, branches grasp at her soft petal tunic and she maneuvers over and under them in a way she’s become so accustomed to. And maybe another time she would have found it amusing how the forest itself seems to want to keep her in it’s own way, rough and grasping…welcoming….

But for now she’s in a hurry and she accepts the scratches and tugs with a grim kind of annoyance.

_‘I’m trying to save you.’_

Her interpretation had been wrong…so wrong. And it could very well cost lives.

There’s a burning in her chest and her back, her body aching with a fiery pain. It licks its way from the base of her wings and up and up, coalescing into a blinding stinging thing at the top right wing. The wind whistles through the slight gap at the blackened edges, a several years old wound acting up as it never had before.

But then again, she hasn’t had cause to fly like this in such a long time…not since her attempt to rescue Dawn from the self-same Dark Forest she rules now.

And the reminder is almost painful enough in itself to slow her mad dash and make her heavy as lead, but she does it for them…for those who stand loyal and true and trust her so readily.

Her grip on the staff does nothing to alleviate her worry.

She doesn’t know how long she flies for, only that the gentle noises of the night, the insect chirps and goblin mumbles and whispers she’s so fondly used to now have faded into nothingness.

There’s an eerie silence where she is, the only sound being the  _woosh_  of her constantly fluttering wings, a fresh scent of air cutting through the no longer welcome scent pervading the area.

It’s light and smells faintly of morning dew and a kind of indescribable freshness that seems so sharply beckoning, it’s frightening.

“The Gray…” She whispers hoarsely, and an involuntarily shudder rips through her.

She’s close now…she can feel it in her marrow…a kind of dread that comes only in instances of near death or existential crisis…it’s cold and black and drowning like the murkiest depths of the forest bogs or a starless night.

The Gray is a thing of terror.

A fog that rolls down from the hills surrounding them, from every direction and it rises until it obscures the sky and air. It rumbles low and long, seeping through every crevice and cranny until there is nothing but that hypnotizing scent and your fear swallows you whole.

Oh it’s pretty though…it’s a gray of such shifting, lovely hues that one wonders if it’s really so bad to be engulfed in it. And if you look hard enough, you can catch the glittering of stars as silver as the blood in her veins and see loved ones long past behind the roiling, crashing clouds.

(At least according to some…)

There’s a lovely finality to what it leaves behind….

Sometimes nothing happens in it’s wake…everyone emerges frightened and the tiniest bit insane in the best or worst of ways, but whole.

And sometimes things covered becomes wilted and dead…Trees topple and flowers crumble to dust. Grass blackens and any nearby fauna drops to the floor…stone cold dead.

Goblins have been found sitting at their little tables, maybe a cup of cold willow tea still in their hands or perhaps knitting a new scarf from horsetails, and a gentle smile slapped across their stiff faces….stone cold dead, as well.

It’s unpredictable…unwanted…uncanny…and tempting…

Tales of lost loved ones enfolded those billowing clouds make her wonder…what if…just maybe…

_He’s alive…Don’t you dare…he’s still here…_

And this she knows as deep down in her bones as the uncertainty she feels…deeper still than any fear this thing of Gray can instill.

The smell becomes sharper and her nostrils flare to catch the exact direction of it’s assault.

The moonlight is bright and dappled as it strains through the fog cover…and Marianne watches in admiration and horror as the clouds rise higher and higher towards the moonlight

Wasting no time, she spins the staff in her hands, feeling the guiding weight of it all settle into her frame. Her wings don’t beat as hard because they don’t have to now, and the amber jewel glows brighter and brighter….

With a fierce cry, she rushes forward and for not the first or last time, notices with grudging awe that the golden light from the stone dissipates the curling tendrils of the Gray with a sizzling ease.

Her previously snarling lips curl into a satisfied smirk, a quirk of the lip that had always been most welcomed by the one she seeks.

She spins it faster and faster, so now the golden light is a seemingly solid circle of brightness and the sizzling grows as she attacks a formless foe.

Down and up she weaves past the branches and ferns and flora, grazing the Northernmost edges of her,  _ **his**_ , kingdom…

She notes with relief that it is receding and the diameter of the phenomenon has been a small one..

There’s a quick dive, staff spinning slower now and honeyed light dimming…and then she rights herself. Staff stopping, wings freezing until she drops with a jolt to a blessedly sturdy branch below her.

Because for a quick second as the moon shines through the fading mists and the stardust settles, she thinks she sees…

_“BOG!”_

There’s no time to think…or maybe she simply doesn’t want to because the amber has stopped glowing and the last of the wisps are fading into the humid summer air, gone away with the northern winds…

She flies…faster than even before because she is driven by an almost madness, her fingers reaching for the disappearing shadowy figure and she swears for almost a second that the something behind those fading clouds is reaching for her too…

Then a sudden gust of wind blows it away, and the last tendrils fade inches from her trembling, reaching fingertips.

“NO!”

She chases what is not there.

When finally she realizes what she is doing, she hugs herself, slowly drifting in the slight breeze left over as easily as a dead leaf…there’s nothing substantial in her or about her…hope had been so cruelly given and taken away…she’s chasing shadows now…

How far has she sunk?

A rattling sob crawls up her throat and she lets it out…there’s no one here…nothing left of this nightmare but a moonlit night and dark green foliage…nothing but a wobbly kingdom and a broken substitute and a wooden staff…

She falls like stone…achy and tired and burning and broken…

She will wake to a bright morning in a grateful subject’s hollowed out tree, on a heather mattress with the ever present staff propped up near the bedside…there will be no body count this time…

 **Yet still, she will feel like she has lost…**  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the title of this one is supposed to be a pun on “into the fray”


	4. One Step Forward and Into a Knot of Loopholes

There is a simplicity in the manner of those who live in the Dark Forest. It is born of necessity, of a need to get business done in a manner most quick, because you never know when your last day will be in a place filled with lovely dangers and hidden treasures.

Marianne understands this.

She knows it with a certainty so sure and even practices it on occasion. It’s become a well honed tool, razor edged and coated in a silver words, pretty and deceiving. A strange melange of what she was before and what she has found in a world of shadow and moonlight.

The mistakes she’s made at Goblin dinners and the almost-wild-enough-but-not-quite attempts are all worth it when the Council is left speechless and stumbling.

There is nothing like good old Goblin mannerisms to cut through the pomp and circumstance of a stagnant Fairy court session. The metaphor is all too literal as they stare with wide eyes at her quivering sword, embedded in the center of the long conference table.

The metal sings with a happy anticipation, a joyous warning to those who would hinder progress because they are too mired in tradition. It seems to hum…

_So you want to play? Careful…things so pretty and sharp are here to stay._

And they are…she is…as firmly set into the system and future of her kingdom as her blade is in the table.

She laughs, because as scared as they are, she’s always enjoyed sharp things. Marianne’s smile is just as cutting as her sword, and far too malicious to be considered beautiful by any fairy standard.

It’s really more of a snarl.

The decision is made within the next two minutes.

Her smile is still sharp at the end of it all. A cold politeness lines her features, casting her in a fierce light. They have to wonder how years of careful breeding and pruning of the royal line left them with an heir that seemed more of the marsh than anything of the fields.

They remember when she was nothing but a slip of a girl, young and wide eyed, easily hushed by pseudo explanations and swayed by mere opinions worded as truths.

They conclude that she has been corrupted and whisper behind steepled hands.

She likes it this way.  _Really_  likes it.

Marianne enjoys it, because she likes to think that as different as she is when placed in the middle of a kaleidoscope of fairies, she is just brusque enough to be in the midst of goblin-kind. Maybe not quite as tough, but they have a way of welcoming those who just even try.

Becoming more like them is just an added benefit of loving their king.

She pulls her sword from the ancient wood, relishing the splinters that fly to sting and the melodious ringing of dancing steel.

Her wings flare behind her, whole and ready to take on the world, the indigo and purple hues singing in time with the sword in her steady grip.

There is nothing decidedly goblin or fairy about that.

It’s simply Marianne.

* * *

 

Marriage in the Dark Forest comes in two flavors.

The first is a staggeringly familiar affair.

Griselda’s ‘lofe’ decor of sickeningly red hearts and garlands should have been a glaring indication as to what is considered to be romantic, here under the eaves of trees and dappled by the occasional sunlight.

And it isn’t that far off from the fairy ideal.

Marianne has attended several weddings already, some out of courtesy and some out of curiosity…mostly it’s a formal binding of her name to Bog’s. An acknowledgement of her relationship with their trusted monarch…

And even as strange as she is in their eyes and for all the faux pas she has committed at these affairs, they see her trying…avid curiosity sparks her glance and questions sit like golden filigree within her conversations. She lays it all out and she is as to the point as the best of them.

They learn to love her sooner than later, much to Bog’s teasing delight.

She can see the beauty of it all now, even without Bog’s help. Her sight is open, her mind at ease as she learns more about the dangerous, alien wonder that is to be found under trees and ferns and in muddy water and sparkling streams. But for all her excitement, there are times where things aren’t as different as she thinks, or wishes, them to be.

Marriage of the first kind is just that.

It is still a groom waiting for a bride at the end of long walk…it is still a gauzy veil of dew drops and spider silk…it is an offering of some sort of livestock by the bride’s father, still a dowry…it is still music, giddy and jumpy and quick and as varied in its tone as the inhabitants of this kingdom.

It is still joy and happiness and all that still hurts.

_Even now, why? I should be happy._

It doesn’t escape Bog’s notice that there’s something more than disappointment in her eye when she realizes this.

Her smile is strained, more a grimace than anything, as she stands to deliver a toast. Her hand trembles on the pommel of her sword, knuckles white and jaw set in that way he knows all too well is holding back a flood of emotion.

Her glass of honey sweetened mead is raised high, catching the dusky light of a strained sunset.

“I-I wish you happiness…may you forever be fai-”

She stutters and recovers, clearing her throat.

“May you forever be fair to one another, in all that you do.”

 _ **“Here, here”**_  comes from somewhere behind her and the crowd cheers along, no one but her King having noticed how she faltered over one words and how her eyes had dimmed, even under the splendor of evening light and happy atmosphere.

She sits back down, her head hunched and her glass returned untouched to the table.

The crowd is distracted by a particularly moving speech from the bride’s father. But not even the sight of him blubbering and honking into one of his long froggy ears is enough to make her brighten up.

“I need some air.” She whispers up to Bog, her eyes never meeting his searching gaze.

And because he is Bog and their dynamic is one of understanding and waiting, he lets her go without protest. But when he gently threads his clawed hands through her smaller fingers, she knows he is worried.

_Do you need me? I’m here. I’ll wait._

She brings up their joined hands,and presses a soft kiss to his knuckles, lingering for a few moments and relishing the feel of pricking skin against her lips.

_You’re sweet. I know. I’ll be okay._

And then she slips away like mist in the sun, wings pressed closely to her back making it easier to wind her way through the throng of merry party-goers.

As the songs fade into happy humming, she finds the pain becoming easier to bear, and instead she finds anger, old and deep. It brings thorns with it, grasping and coiling around hurt she thought had long been cut through by her sword and by her will.

This wedding is the first she has attended since her own fateful day. Since the day she had been a fool and rushed in and witnessed everything that had seemed like joy and happiness, and dowries, and a long walk down an aisle, shatter to shards of time. Shards that had splintered along cracks that had long been present; doubt, insecurity, unimportance.

It’s all sad sharpness and aching heart.

She was almost a bride…almost walked down an aisle…almost heard songs on her almost wedding day…and there’s fear…

Because there’s love and hope and amber glue holding together those splintered pieces she had held so safely within her. And it’s a shoddy patchwork job, but somehow it seems to catch the light just right with its imperfect edges and golden glue. It’s warm and familiar in a way she never would have imagined, and she likes the gaps because she can see a blue so clear and honest through them, that it makes her sing.

She is so much more aware now though. The bliss of ignorance is gone.

She can see exactly where her heart has cracked and faultlines that belie weakness are so obvious to her. She understands how weak she is and that is scary.

Because just over ten months ago, she had handed a tall king with rattling plates and sharp edges this poor collection of broken glass that she called a heart. And he had been the one to spin amber glue with a sweet, awkward patience…then he had proceeded to fumble and put the shards together, one piece at a time.

She only notices she’s crying when Bog wipes away her tears.

It’s only been a few minutes, if she reckons by the lengthening shadows of the ferns and blooms that ring this pond. Yet he is still here, and she wonders in amazement at how he always seems to come at just the right moment.

Never too early, never too late.

Timing seems to be his strong suit…or maybe theirs?

Regardless, his touch is tender on her cheeks, the slight breeze stinging more than his rough palms at the moment.

“Do ye want ta talk about it?”

She leans into his touch, and closes her eyes.

The sun is down now. There’s only a few of tendrils of pink and purple reaching across the darkening sky now. And they seem to be drowning, reaching for stars they will never touch and perhaps that is for the best.

Somewhere a cricket chirps and reeds rustle in the tepid, muggy breeze that matches the warmth coming from the celebration a ways away.

He waits.

So she begins.

“I…I almost said faithful.”

Her eyes tighten in pain and his widen in understanding.

“But tha’-”

“I know.”

She pulls away quickly, and draws into herself, her arms crossing and wings curling around her in the way they tend to do when she’s scared…really scared.

“I know. It’s not like that…it won’t happen like that..for us.”

Her voice lilts at the end, and it almost sounds like a question.

For all the times he’s reassured her, all the times he’s kissed her and look at her like she was the world made new and the stars born again, she still fears.

Because what’s stopping him from giving back the messily patched up thing she calls a heart?

“Because ye have mine in your hands, Tough Girl. ”

She realizes with dawning horror that her thoughts have disobeyed her. They’ve conspired with her lips and her throat to escape and embarrass. To reveal and leave her bare…

Her cry of dismay is muffled by his sudden embrace.

“I’ll say it as many times as I need ta.”

She struggles against him, cheeks staining red and embarrassment flowing through her like wine.

“Don’t. You don’t have to! I-”

“I  _ **lofe**_  ya. ” He declares over her protests. He emphasizes the pronunciation, fully aware that it is the misspelled version that they had first bonded over. It’s imperfect and it’s funny.

It’s theirs.

The grin tugging at the edges of his thin lips is telling enough.

It only grows when she starts beating against his chest. The punches are light and without intent to hurt…because he knows first hand just how much her fists can injure when she means it.

His grin widens and he veritably shouts it this time.

“I LOFE YA’, MARIANNE!”

Marianne realizes there’s nothing to be done that can wipe that stupid smile off his face. Her ire rises and the hurt is washed away, disappearing through the cracks of a crazily, beating glasswork heart.

He starts again.

“I LO-mmph.”

She pulls him down for a kiss, her lips have covered his in protest and muffled mirth. She is flush against him, the softness of the pink petals brush against sharp edges, and she feels the rumble of deep laughter in his chest.

She feels her own bubble and well up in her chest. It rises to her throat and tickles her traitorous mouth, quirks her purple lips that can snarl and smile.

They break the kiss with laughter, foreheads pressed against each other.

They guffaw and gasp, and it is interspersed with unseemly snorts, but they could care less.

It’s simply Bog and Marianne.

* * *

 

The second flavor of marriage proves to be something sweeter on the tongue and altogether unexpected.

For all that she has praised the brusqueness of Goblin manner and the newness of it all, there are times when the simplicity is so subtle, she is blindsided.

This is one of those times.

“A YEAR?!”

She rounds on a cowering Bog King, his hands are held up in front of him in that oh so frustratingly endearing way that makes him look like a child caught in mischief.

His towering form is curled into his throne, legs splayed and back curved to avoid a very,  _very_  angry Marianne.

She seems to grow bigger, her wings have flared out, catching the dusty sunbeams from the giant skylight he has had made for her. It’s a veritable light show, the way that the luminescence jumps between the spectrum of purples and the silver dotting the black. It’s mesmerizing in the same way sunlight dapples water and moonlight colors things silver.

But he can’t be distracted…not now when his life is being threatened by the tiny fairy he calls his love.

“I forgot abou’-”

“HOW DO YOU FORGET SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!”

And then there’s another thing catching light and the sound of singing metal as she pulls out her sword.

Her stance is ready and he barely has time to block her blow with his staff.

The clash rings through the hall, lyrical and welcoming, because he can deal with an angry spar…it’s verbal sparring he’s never been talented in.

He’s pushed once again against the bark of his living throne, and he notices that for all her passion, she is not pushing as hard she can.

“I can fix this!”

But she’s not listening to him, her eyes are molten gold. They are stars and everything that is fiery and all consuming in this world.

He adores and fears the color they spark, because she is alive in ways that make him so happy. There is someone pushing back against the hurt, someone whose will to fight and claw their way to victory matches his own.

And in the throes of her passion, he is all too willing a participant.

But it still stings a bit…because is it really so bad to be…

“MARRIED! We’re married Bog and that’s all you can say!”

She swings again, the blade whistling just past his ear as he ducks. He parries her blows smoothly, but she continues to strike with a mad kind of abandon. She’s beginning to forget technique, bludgeoning his staff as if her finely crafted sword was nothing but a crude hammer.

It’s a style more suited to the common denizen of his kingdom than to a dainty princess whose fighting form is usually as pretty as it is deadly.

The confusion is clear through her movements, a brief hesitancy in her actions let’s him know she’s more uncomfortable with the suddenness of the news than anything else.

Yet here she is fighting so hard against it, against him and that is enough.

“I WAS GOING TA ASK YE ANYWAYS!”

He twirls his staff and his next blow knocks the sword clear across the room, her stunned hold on the thing not enough to keep it in her possession.

Their breathing is heavy and the silence is deafening, the  _lub dub_  of syncing hearts thudding and roaring in both their ears. Eyes are bright, and there is honey and sky meeting all at once as they look up at each other.

Bog is filled with trepidation, a shot of ice runs through his veins and every joint, every plate, every chitin flecked edge of him is poised to run. He is frozen and frigid and like a frosted bauble behind glass, time has stopped for him.

Then Marianne’s glacial glare melts into amber the color of the stone in his staff. And she laughs.

And damn it, it’s that laugh that pools in his belly and cradles his scarred and achy heart until there is nothing but warmth and acceptance. It’s a laugh he would pay dearly to hear for the rest of his life, and he is unmade and unfrozen.

“Yes, you idiot! Yes!”

His limbs click click as he visibly melts under the heat of her look, every joint relaxing and he has to set his staff on the ground and lean against it for support when he realizes what she’s said yes to. He is languid and loose, and she feels in him a surrender and vulnerability as she embraces him.

Her thin arms encircle his neck, and he can’t speak because there is such a thing as being too happy, and he doesn’t know if it’s her tight embrace or the burgeoning joy taking up every aspect of his being that doesn’t let him breathe.

But he figures he can deal without a little air for this.

He holds her to him, cradling her head so tenderly and sweet. They sway in one spot to an invisible tune, and he thinks that the clang of staff against blade would be a good enough wedding song for them.

Later he will explain how Goblins are so simplistic, that a couple is considered lawfully married after a year of courting. Common law marriage is a surprisingly common thing here…and something he never thought he would even have the chance to forget…much less someone who was willing to spend the rest of their life with him.

Later he will tell her about how life can be very short in a place where there is danger in every corner, and that time is the greatest measure of all things here, and that is why this happened.

Later he will tell her that this all makes her a Queen of this forest and a potential inheritor of his throne.

But these things are meant to be packaged in carefully crafted missives, meant to be delivered with a silvered tongue and they are things for a heavier train of thought than any of them feel capable of at the moment.

For now…

Let them sway and let their hearts sing, because they are married, and he forgot.

It’s simply Bog and Marianne, after all.

* * *

 

The music is grating on his ears, it seeps past the cracks in his armor and the fissures in his heart. And those citizens who know him well enough smile and thank him, but they have long learned to stop asking if they will ever have a queen.

But there are new faces here, and a particularly drunk goblin that looks like a cross between a toadstool and a toad asks that oh so dreaded question.

“Will you eva, get ma-murried… Your Majester?”

The hiccup that punctuates the query is the final straw.

_I was._

This thought is the niggling worm. It’s the wisp that drifts through his mind, that which he cannot grasp or comprehend. It hurts and aches and he cannot breath when the words echo in his mind. The uncertainty the worm brings as it gnaws through his thoughts and memoria is crippling.

He can’t breathe.

He can’t deal without a little air.

He is a broken, messy thing made to stand tall and lead and perhaps inspire loyalty.

He is the Bog King.

And he hates weddings.

But he must come to make a show, and his ban on love does not include this…that which is real and true and straight forward and does not smell of primroses.

_That which you had._

His heart is hurting. There is a burning behind His head and down his throat and he wants to shout. Where is this coming from?

_‘Make it stop. Make it stop. STOP!’_

But he has no hope, and his broken, achy, scarred heart continues to beat because he is someone too hideous to love.

There is no room left for him to wonder about what-if’s and what-could-have-been’s. Feelings he had thought would last to eternity for a sweet young thing have faded with the years. Sugar Plum is still in the prison he has crafted, from fear…from guilt…

He grips his head and lets loose a scream. The poor drunken goblin is hurled across the room.

There is hardly any cause for concern. He’s a hardy fellow, but the music has stopped and all attention is on the monarch who has sat crouched at the back of the room.

The fear is palpable and the bright lights in the dingy log are too bright even now.

He needs air.

A quick excuse and he is out, flying past the ferns he likes to unfurl and a spiderweb glistening in the moonlight.

_It hurts…it hurts…it hurts…_

But he doesn’t know why.

He will not receive any more wedding invitations after this.

He will be feared even more, and any talk of love around him will cease…except by his mother.

And he soars into a starry night, the hated silver of the moon mocking him for all its worth.

Any disturbance he makes is brushed off, oddities attributed to his already strange appearance.

 **After all, it’s only the Bog King.**  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is based on “tying the knot” and also the loophole of sorts only alluded to here. Because I really like the oxymoron of a loophole being something to help you get out of a situation, but in this case it leads to Marianne's current situation.


	5. One Step Forward and Into a Strange Chronology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's some explanation and lots of drama.

He’s always been a little incredulous about her presence in his dungeons. She cooes and prattles behind her prison of moonlit spider silk, creates universes and songs and love with her tiny hands. She herself looks as if she is merely a piece of the night sky, stolen and maintained by chaos itself. **  
**

For all her power, he has managed to keep her.

But the Bog King is no fool. She stays because she wants too. She sees and she knows…what she knows she will never tell in plain speech, but she leaves riddles behind. Tiny crumbs of poetry and song to lead him down a path he fears will hold no order.

 _“Impetuous Little Bog King. You play a dangerous game.”_  She chides when he begins to cut down the primroses.

 _“Not yet. Not yet.”_  She hums when he grips his head and screams enough to shake the cages in his dungeons, because he just can’t quite catch that irritating little worm of a thought that niggles and bites and bores through his memory.

 _“It’ll be alright, dear. Almost there. Almost.”_  She comforts when he breaks into a heap of rattling plates and heavy sobs, when he gouges the dirt beneath his fingers until he bleeds, because it just hurts too much and he can’t remember why. She seems to take pity on him then. She even hides these moments of his from Griselda, to his ever growing confusion and grudging appreciation.

And there’s a relief that seeps down into his very marrow because the word almost sounds really good at the moment.

* * *

“Is it over yet?” Marianne asks. It’s a soft murmur, barely audible over the constant drip drop of rain battering against the outside of the knothole they chose for shelter.

A brief flash of lightning paints her whiter than her fear already has. She burrows into the warmth of his embrace, an uncharacteristic softness to her form.

Bog doesn’t laugh. He knows her fear is a sore spot for her, but it’s not unwarranted. Not when fairy wings are made of stardust and break like parchment in the rain. He merely curls his arms around her tighter, cradling her with a gentleness not obvious in his normal mien.

But he can also hear the drops coming lighter, more a kiss than a blow on leaves and bark.

“Almost.” He answers, sure and steady and patient.

“Almost.” She echoes into the hollow of his neck. Her warm breath fans delightfully across his skin it seeps beneath his armor to heat the vulnerable parts of him underneath it all. Because hers is a sigh of relief and love and reassurement.

She peeks under his embrace quickly. The opening is slightly blocked by his staff crossed with her silver sword, both braced against each other to create a barrier against the torrential rain.

Her eyes darken when they land on the amber placed so surely into that emblem of Bog’s position. It’s dull and flat under the gray of a rainy day and the cover of leaves, but it still scares her because of what it means.

The rain had caught them unawares. They were settling a score, communicating their fears and displeasure in the only they knew how

 _“I CAN’T DO IT!”_.

And just like countless times before, she had crossed her sword with his staff, the metallic ringing reverberating all the way up her arms and into her chest where it seemed to ring in time with her beating heart.

“ _YER SO STUBBORN! It’s just a preemptive measure, Marianne!”_

Bog parried another blow from her, and was just about to land another when she put on a burst of speed. Her wings had flared gloriously, catching what little sunlight sieved through silver clouds and a verdant canopy. She caught his final blow, pushed back with the momentum afforded to her by her mad flight and disarmed him, his staff whistling as it flew from his grasp.

_“YOU’RE NOT LEAVING ME!”_

And then, as suddenly as it had all ended, her tears had mingled with the first drops of rain. They had retrieved his scepter in record time and found shelter in the curious little knot hole they now rested in. A knothole guarded by silver and amber with an entirely new connotation.

So Marianne glares at the amber, promising herself that it will never be hers. Because Bog will always be with her and the “Marsh Queen” is a just-in-case monicker, and she intends to never let it come to fruition, even if she must stake her life on it.

The rain drums on, she falls asleep, waiting for an almost that is too long in coming.

* * *

The sky is dark. The clouds are roiling with anticipation. They have done their crying. Now all they can do is wait for what’s to come. Or perhaps, what has already come.

There is no light in the throne room. The skylight has been covered by thick layers of spider silk and dead leaves. The wind whistles through eerily, singing a song of loss and loneliness. There is little light in the throne room, and it is a ghastly, weak glow from lanterns that will die out soon.

It’s dark enough that Sugar Plum’s own light shines as bright as the stars. It’s a pretty type of luminescence that cannot stay put, shifting with nervous movement through the space next to a still living throne and a Bog King still as stone.

“You don’t know what you’re playing with, Bog King. It’s impossible,“ She chides him with fear and trepidation obvious in her tone. For once, she’s truly scared and she’s trembling, the tiny galaxies that rest within her swirl and spin with emotion. Because she had seen and she had stayed.

It takes him a second, to gather his response. To remember through the haze of the past few days…a spell gone wrong, an enemy’s return, a goodbye, a funeral, madness. He remembers summoning Sugar Plum, a hysterical note just hidden under his brusque questions with answers Sugar Plum refuses to satisfy.

“IT’S NOT IMPOSSIBLE! That…that…He was going ta do it. Wasn’t he?”

The Bog King has become a thing of sorrow, a creature wrought of scales and claws and pain. He’s gone near mad, but he holds on to the vestiges of his control because he is still a King and still has people to protect and defend.

He has also become a beggar of the saddest kind. A kingdom’s riches in his possession, but they are worthless because Marianne is gone and he has lost everything.

“I can’t bring back the dead.” Sugar Plum says tersely. She is powerless in the face of mortality. She can create love, but she can’t keep it alive. Not the real thing anyways.

And though she’s no longer in a prison of moonlit gossamer, she is still caught. She is caught by chains and bonds of care. Because really she does care. It’s the reason she stayed and the reason she knows she will have to make this bargain.

She rings her little hands, her anxiety painted in her sweeping, gliding movements near the new throne.

“I can’t bring back the dead, Bog. I’m sorry.”

And truly she is.

His last hope dashed, heart irreparable. Sorries mean nothing anymore. Because he remembers when Marianne once begged for him not leave her alone. She had been selfish. Selfish enough to leave him alone, to give her life for his and that is the worst part. That she had taken a blade meant for him, that she had used reasoning as she lay bleeding silver, blood bubbling up in her throat, stopping words.

_“They n-need you, Bog.”_

_“YER NOT LEAVING ME. YE CAN’T!”_

_“I’m sorry.”_

His eyes speak of loss, his form is hunched and still as stone. He wants to stay there, to sink into the earth and sleep and never wake up. His chest aches and he loathes the sight of that silver sword he couldn’t bear to bury with her.

He raises his head, looks at Plum with his burning blue eyes, desperation and madness glazing over them until he is not seeing her, but past her. Past her, to a place where Marianne is by his side and where he can see her again.

“Then end me, Plum.  _I beg of you_.”

The last time he had begged her, she hadn’t listened because she had known that telling his story was the only way for his future to unfold in a happy manner. All current tragedies aside…

This time, she will not listen and will not comply because there is a way, but it is uncertain. Uncertain, chaotic, unprecedented and unraveling.

“I won’t kill you, Bog. But I will tell you this.”

She breathes a not-needed breath because she’s is technically only elements that coordinate for her existence. She does not need to eat or breathe, but she has lived far too long with beings that do. She is not like her sisters, who unbalance things for enjoyment or vengeance.

She cares.

Bog isn’t listening. He’s had his cries, and he’s destroyed nearly every reminder. Everything except for a hated silver sword that rests on his hip at all times.

Sugar Plum knows what she says next will seal their course of action.

“I can’t bring her back…but I can take you back.”

And time stops still. The gravity of what she’s just said, the weight of an entire course of fate lies in his hands and she has told him that.

“What?” Bog asks, but it’s a whisper and a quiet dawning hope that can be extinguished with just one more word from her.

But Sugar Plum sees, and she knows that this is what was meant to be done.

“Roland failed. Most likely you will too, and it’s not an easy price to pay.”

And as she speaks, the sword at his side seems to hum with a melody of its own. It sings in it’s scabbard, rattling against his armor as if begging to be used.

Sugar Plum looks at it meaningfully and without hesitation, Bog pulls out the blade. It has stopped ringing, and sits innocently in his grasp, shining dimly in the lackluster lighting of the throne room.

“What do I do?”

There is no hesitation in his tone. The madness has fully come to fruition, and Sugar Plum feels a frisson of fear race up her back. Because although Bog is mortal, he is driven by something far more powerful than anything she can create. Real love is strong, but it’s not always moral. But she cares for her own far more than potential consequences and her only consolation is that she saw a number of possibilities, a few of them good.

“Pierce your heart, Bog King. Pierce your heart to bring her back.”

“And the price?”

Sugar Plum is no longer smiles and songs. She is still riddles and even if she cares, she knows that what she has done is taboo and wrong and chaotic. But it might just be worth something, so she simply says-

“If you fail…that’s a high enough price already.”

She has no chance to say another word before he plunges the sword into his chest, a soft wet sound of steel piercing flesh lets her know that it’s begun.

* * *

_The Bog King is gone. The Marsh Queen sits alone, waiting and fighting a menace of Gray._

* * *

_Sugar Plum stays because she knows what this young Bog King doesn’t. That they are both creatures out of place and out of time, changing a future **for better or worse.**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear. Thank you to everyone who commented and read this tangled, messy thing. I just logged on back into here and will answer promptly. It's confusing. It is. There's some rhyme and reason to this though. Mostly rhyme, but as a few of you have guessed this is time travel. So I hope you'll stay with me while we ride out this mess. If you choose not to, then I thank you sincerely for the time you've taken to look at this and wish you all the best. If you choose to stay. thank you and let's be on our merry way!

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh....This is so angsty. I apologize. This is the first work I've ever posted on here, and it's on Tumblr, but I feel like this might be an easier way to read it rather then digging through tags or something. Well let's move forward.


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